Game Description:Conceived as a trilogy (perhaps to continue on afterwards in future games), the third chapter to Mass Effect will hopefully deliver a thrilling and conclusive (but not too final ... we wouldn't want the adventure to end at just three games) capper on the Mass Effect storyline. Expect more explosive gunplay, more plot twists, more memorable characters, more heart-wrenching choices, more scenic vistas of beauty and majesty ... and maybe even some more sexy dancing!
NOTE: This game has been confirmed as a title in the works but it has not been announced for any specific game machine. Please check back for official info.

Mass Effect 3 Review

Mass Effect 3 rounds out its epic space opera with innumerous moments of restrained maturity, bringing about a conclusion that satisfies better than anything, not just in games, but in any pop medium.

The Pros

This is how you end a trilogy

Wide diversity for character options

Combat decidedly richer and challenging

The Cons

Small side quests can be teases

Mass Effect 3 Review

From the very beginning Mass Effect 3 exudes a sense of things coming to an end. The strange beauty of the Reapers, towering godly metal cephalopods descending calmly on an earth hapless to defend itself, is conveyed with a quiet certitude and minimal histrionics. It is the end of the world, and for those who have invested the 150-plus hours into this fabulous game series, the end of existence in this fascinating and thoughtful piece of creativity. Mass Effect 3 rounds out its epic space opera with innumerous moments of restrained maturity, bringing about a conclusion that satisfies better than anything, not just in games, but in any pop medium.

Mass Effect 3 begins months after the conclusion of 2 during which time Shepard has returned to Earth, summarily stripped of his military authority due to his affiliation with the human-supremacist organization, Cerberus. Not one to be idle, he continues his vain attempts to convince the galactic authorities of the impending threat from the Reapers, strange ancient beings that have habitually decimated all ancient civilizations. The game starts with the stunning sequence of the Reapers attacking Earth, with reinstated Shepard off to rally support from all the other galactic species in the hopes that such a unified force can prevent the seemingly inevitable end of times.

The unification is trickier that it should be. Despite the backdrop of the eradication of all organic life, squabbles among species cannot be overcome easily, and Shepard becomes the greatest ombudsman of all time, attempting to reconcile deep-seated resentments and suspicions that wrap up the political strands of the Mass Effect saga, and in the process, shines a bright light on the player’s decisions from the previous two games. The game also forces the player to make some of the most morally complex decisions in the series that found me walking away from the screen for quite some time to ponder the significance of the possible outcomes. Here is one of Mass Effect 3’s greatest tricks; as the final game in the series, it no longer has the lure of your decisions manifesting themselves in unknown ways in successive games and yet the decisions you make feel the most significant, perhaps because they are reflection of your own ethics.

What makes these decisions carry such weight is the writing, which has always been so effective in the Mass Effect series, not just in the clever story it weaves but the clarity with which it is done. Minor characters and events from the first game, released in 2007, are referenced here without exposition because they have been drawn so clearly. This is an extraordinary feat when you consider the amount of hours and dialogues generated by all three games. The events and characters, while cut from classic tropes of sci-fi and fantasy, manage to stand out as unique, and the player is drawn in further and further by feelings of investment. Simply put, the game makes the player care.

That player investment is rewarded greatly in Mass Effect 3 through the best writing to date from Bioware. The large moments loom with urgency and drama, the conflicts that prevent all species from collectively fighting the Reapers are complex and thoughtful, and the character interactions with Shepard carry a surprising poignancy. Seeing an old character who promises to buy you a drink "when it’s all over" doesn’t read like bravado but a desperate hold on a deeply fragile hope that things will work out.

Working in perfect concert with the writing is the digital acting, voice work, and non-interactive camerawork. The conversation sequences may be less articulated than the cutscenes in Uncharted, but they convey all the necessary emotion because the voice acting is universally distinct and superlative. What is more impressive in this Mass Effect outing are the cutscenes, some which I cannot see replicated even in film. The framing in some scenes beautifully echoes the enormity and scope of the drama, vistas of devastation or threat. Action sequences are very kinetic, and personal interactions have an intimacy that never feels static. Mass Effect 3 is produced with such an amazing level of care and detail that it’s impossible not to get swept up in all its majesty.

With such strong narrative, it’s easy to forget that it’s also a game, and here too, the Mass Effect 3 steps up and trumps its previous incarnations. Mass Effect 2 tightly narrowed its role playing depth after the redundant breadth of ME1; Mass Effect 3 finds a very happy medium that is based on a host of options for the player that are easy to interpret and, more importantly, easy to see their impact in the game.

Shepard and his supporting cast have more skills to which experience points can be applied, and inside of each skill is a skill tree that breaks in 2 directions; for example, at level 3 of Overload, you can increase damage or widen the radius of effect. Some skills benefit the whole team, others just the specific character. Taken in each instance, these changes may seem minor, but collectively, they help guide character development towards support, tank, everything you’re used to in role playing games, despite which character class you choose.

The same diversity is present in your arsenal. Regardless of character class, any weapon is available. In fact, you can carry all five weapon types at once. How the game balances this opportunity is through the best application of weight encumbrance in any modern role-playing game; Shepard does not slow down, his biotic powers recharge very slowly. The player has the choice to focus on guns instead of throwing shockwave every few seconds.

The weapons themselves are also more diverse. Each weapons type has many (maybe 10+) versions that are unlocked through the game, all of them handling, feeling and looking distinct. Each of these weapons can be upgraded up to five times for relatively modest costs, allowing the player to figure out what suits their play style before heavily investing. Mods, once again, about five to each weapon class, are available and upgradeable, with two slots for mods open for each weapon. This assortment, which may sounds daunting on paper, is elegantly presented in the game and takes on increasing interest as the game progresses and you fine tune your play style. (For a while I played the game leaning on a high-powered pistol with a scope throwing my biotic powers around like a Jedi on amphetamines.) Bioware has done an extraordinary job of fostering experimentation and discovery without penalty.

Most of these improvements would be moot if the game didn’t present the proper challenges to respect your attention to character development. Here again, Mass Effect 3 steps up and delivers. Enemy AI and a wide variety of enemy types are significantly improved making a normal playthrough (starting at level 30, for me) a challenge. Armed enemies will use smoke, flank and throw grenades to flush you out of cover. While the husks abound, other Reaper-influenced enemies will rush Shepard and his crew, keeping the whack-a-mole combat from cover at a minimum. (I found my Vanguard Shepard’s playstyle changing significantly throughout the game upon learning that, unlike in ME2, biotic jumps became too dangerous and a slower more sober-minded approach was wiser.) As the game progresses, the number and variety of enemies on screen can feel daunting but is also highly evocative of the despair of the larger story, which heightens the drama.

Mass Effect 3, like its two predecessors, has three components: story, combat and... that third thing. In Mass Effect 1, it was the strange driving sequences; in ME2, it was the onerous mining; here, it is the least intrusive and the most superficial. Throughout Mass Effect 3, your galaxy map adds regions that have been taken over by the Reapers. You enter those sectors and scan them, looking for anomalies on planets or floating in space, that may have war assets - the currency that tracks how ready you are to take on the reapers are also acquired through normal quests - which you then pick up with little effort. You scan more than 2-3 times in the sectors though, and the reapers show up and drive you away. This gameplay is modest and easily exploited but minor enough to keep completionists from losing their minds.

The one true downside to this gameplay mechanic is that potentially interesting quests are closed just by scanning a planet and acquiring its war asset or, in some cases, by running back and forth between people on the citadel. Some set-ups, such as an Elcor that asks you to rescue his people, sounds like a sidequest with discovery and action; I didn’t realize I had fulfilled my promise of help until three hours after I had. This is a disappointment because the Mass Effect universe is so intriguing that any substantive opportunity to interact with it more is too enticing.

Not content to refine its single player, Mass Effect 3 also offers online co-op gameplay in "Galaxy at War". This horde-style survival mode is woven into the larger fiction with you taking on the role of combatant in the war that makes the backdrop for the single player game. What’s more thoughtful though is that your success in co-op has an effect on the single player campaign, as your efforts contribute to the preparation of the forces of good in their fight against the Reapers. This is an alternative to doing all the single player activities and focusing on the main quests, supplementing your "galactic readiness" with co-op.

It’s a solid, stable, if slight, take on the newest multiplayer mode du jour with all the requisite leveling and upgrading to keep the devoted engaged, but it lacks of the single player game’s complexity in combat and, more importantly, its excitement because it is quite disconnected from the Shepard saga. Nonetheless, it is a nice diversion and should find an audience with those who have been requesting some online component to the franchise.

Mass Effect 3 and the entire series stand alongside Uncharted and Skyrim in exemplifying what games can do that cannot be replicated in other creative forms. What is so unique in this game is how the presence of its conclusion feels like the existential dread that infuses the characters that make up its universe. The paradox of the game becomes painfully prescient as it draws inexorably towards its conclusion. Here, Shepard is trying to determining the fate of everything but the inevitability of the final is inescapable. All the decisions you continue to make in Mass Effect may be less consequential but they feel all the more grave as if the game is becoming a testament to who you are, or who you want to be.

Editor's Note: Mass Effect 3 was reviewed using an Xbox 360 copy of the game; however, we also played the PS3 version, and found no differences. If further investigation reveals any differences between the 360 edition and the PS3 edition of the game, this review will be updated to reflect those differences.

Comments are Closed

Another fanboy of EA. come on now, the fans overwhelmingly hate the ending . Also, the game was certainly not up to the first two games. Prior to the ending, at most a 3.5. Boy those critics sure like to suckle at the teat of all that ad revenue... Hey dude, did you even play the game?

Oh my... I normally trust G4 reviews but this is just outrageous. I had to make an account to post this it ticked me off so much.

Did you even play the game before you rated it? I was under the impression for the past 2 games that my choices mattered, yet when you get to the end of the game it turns out they dont? Oh excuse me, I thought this whole time that was what the game was about.

Seriously you guys are just lying through your teeth "this is how you end a trilogy"???? "A conclusion that satisfies better than anything?" Are you insane? None of your choices matter at all in the end and no matter what everyone you care about dies and the galaxy explodes the end. You really think that's a satisfactory ending? Stop lying!

They rate this game a 5... i give it a 2. it's not that it was a truly bad game but the ending is so bad that nothing that came before can save it. it is so sad that a game that gave so much diversity in your actions cam down to one one ending. and yes there is only one ending. that give it to you in three colors rad, green and blue, but it is the same ending no mater what you do. you can say what you want about some 16 ending but try to get Joker to not crash land on that planet in any of them. this is New Coke. this is The nips on Batman. this is now the Ass Effect... woops where did i drop that M?

Just remember everyone if you don't like the ending to a TV series; to get a new ending all you have to do is change the color contrast and BOOM new ending.... I hated the ending to the Sopranos but change the color of the screen to green and it felt alot more calming.. And Lost? You havn't seen the ending till you've seen it through a blue filter.... Ah Art

I'm still playing the Multiplayer on almost a daily basis, but I have 5 saves from ME2 all different paths, I finished my first save on ME3 and just play multiplayer... Haven't even started up my other saves... The only thing that changes is that your team members (from ME2) will or won't be on the citadel or in a location you just HAPPEN to help in the nick of time. BORING! Other than the ride down this game disappoints in all measurable means. If you are going to tell me I don't understand "Artistic Vision" because I find the ending of the game to be retarded.. Go color or something. Come up with a good argument for WHY I have 1000's of reasons for hating the ending... But all you "Artistic Visioners" can answer me 1 question... I romanced Ashley in both games.... Saved her from Vermire, we stormed Ilium together, shared many intimate moments together on the Normandy, TOOK HER WITH ME ON EARTH FOR THE FINAL PUSH.... Why was she on the Normandy with Joker? That 2 timing bitch!

I wish I still had time to game. My Xbox 360 has been collecting dust for the past 6 months. This game might just put me back in action though! I was a huge fan of the original Mass Effect so I'm expecting nothing less from this one. Judging by the graphics, I'm willing to bet this game will push some of the older fat Xbox 360's to their limits and cause the red ring of death... not really a huge loss on my end though ;)

For those people saying that it was all about "how you got there" not "what happened when you got there"Let's just think about a book, as in a novel. There are times in a novel where you may see parts that you don't like. If it is in the beginning of the novel, you will just stop reading it and walk away. So consequentially you wouldn't read the sequels.

If it is in the middle of the novel, you may be able to look past them, because there may be things that you enjoyed up to that point, or you might be looking to how the novel is concluded.

If it is the ending that you don't like, that is what sticks with you. There is nothing to can cover it up, because there is nothing else around it, and you can't look forward to anything because it is the end of the book/series.

The ending is the one of the most memorable parts of the novel. If there is a bad ending, people will remember the bad ending. - My professor opened my eyes to this

Now as far as Mass Effect goes.

I loved ME 1, and I'm sure a lot of other people did too. In the ending, you were able to stop the reapers (at least until ME 3)

In ME 2, you see that some of your choices that you made in ME 1 actually mattered. Even if it was just a brief conversation (like the Rachni) or had huge implications in the political word (like Wrex). People might not like that they changed focus from the reapers to the collectors or having to take care of crew members daddy issues (loyalty missions), but they overlook that because they know that the choices that made in ME 2 will have an impact in their final against the reapers.

In ME 3, People are happy to see familiar faces, seeing that some of their choices did matter. You (almost singlehandedly) ended wars between all the races and were able to combine the races under one flag to have a chance to defeat the reapers. Everything up to this point was amazing, even up the point where you are running up the beam to take you to the citadel.

In the ending, there are too many plot holes, which causes you to lose narrative coherence. Narrative Coherence is what keeps you in the story, subconsciously, not questioning what is going on. When you start to lose narrative coherence, you begin to question what is going on in the story, and how does it make and sense. In stories and in games you can have a little disruption in the narrative coherence and still tell a compelling story. Too much disruption to Narrative Coherence from the game/story and causes you be judgmental of everything else.

The basis of this series was that your choices do matter, to the final conclusion. However, REGARDLESS of your choices, everyone gets the same 3 options.

If you believe in the Indoctrination theory, then people are angry because you didn't see the ending. You only saw Sheppard fighting indoctrination and wakes up somewhere short of the beam. I would be fine with the ending if Sheppard woke up and then really did destroy the ending, however he only thing that he did was take a breath.

If you take the Ending literally or take it as an Indoctrination Process, it was still a bad ending. Either for Lack of different endings or lack of An ending.

99% of the game was a 10/10 it was just that the 1% was so bad, that caused people to become outraged. If you don't think that the ending doesn't/shouldn't be the determining factor as to how good a game is, then look on the forms or on youtube. All the reviews/complaints from people are a result of them saying that the ending was the most important.

Let me guess... adam didnt actually play the first 2 games nor did he finish this one. this is not how you end a series adam... Unless you were big into "the sopranos" that is.

They left you no choice as to whether or not to build the crucible or walk away at the end. They essentially gave the finger to all the fans and killed the turians and quarians by stranding everyone in the local cluster... And god forbid you get to fight the reapers in the end. Noo we cant let you fight for survival by using the reaper's guns against them (see thanix cannon) and cleaning up the sovereign class reapers on each planet and then in doing that garnering support from that race and then taking back earth at the end with everyone helping you. Nooo we cant have THAT! Even if shepard sacrifices himself in the end to win the war, we cant do that. We have to have a 40hour game that deals with 5% of the potential issues that were risen in the first 2 games and kill off our main character in the end to maintain our "artistic vision".

Anyone who killed the rachni in ME1 would be really surprised to find a rachni queen "constructed" by the reapers to build disposable shock troops... since when are the reapers in cerberus? Its these types of plot holes that are an insult to people who put 200+ hours into the series just to get an ending that amounts to genocide or mass rape or mass slavery

I love this game no matter how messed up the ending was, but if you judge it mainly cause of the ending then tell me this...did your heart not die when you saw Mordin sacrifice himself for the genaphage, did your heart not leap when you saw Grunt walk out of the Rachni cave, did you not have a major grin on your face when the Mother of Threshure Mods destroyed the Reaper on Tukkunka? If you forgotten all of these epic moments in the game after the last 15 minutes of the game, you might as well had killed everyone off in the ME2 so your hate towards the game would of been justified, otherwise, Shut the hell up!! I don't think Mordin Solus death should be in vane cause of a few lousy minutes of confusion...*sniffles* that modeled salarian bastard helped make the game into something to be proud of.....*tears up to his final moments* T_T the game over all is good alright!!

love the game and love the series i even love the ending even with the plotholes mainly because it had a giant explosion. I have a soft spot for explosions and for those who dont like what I had say.... haters gonna hate!!!

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